London Labour and the London Poor, Volume 1
Mayhew, Henry
1861
Of the Street-Sellers of Rice-Milk.
TO make rice-milk, the street-seller usually boils quarts, of the regular measure, of "skim" with of rice, which has been previously boiled in water. An hour suffices for the boiling of the milk; and the addition of the rice, swollen by the boiling water, increases the quantity to quarts. No other process is observed, except that some sweeten their ricemilk before they offer it for sale; the majority, however, sweeten it to the customer's liking when he is "served," unless—to use the words of informant—"he have a werry, werry sweet tooth indeed, sir; and that can't be stood." For the sweetening of quarts, half a pound of sugar is used; for the "spicing," half an ounce of allspice, dashed over the milk freely enough from a pepper-castor. Rice-milk is always sold at stalls arranged for the purpose, and is kept in a tin pan fitted upon a charcoal brazier, so that the "drinkable" is always hot. This apparatus generally stands on the ground alongside the stall, and is elevated only by the feet of the brazier. The "rice-milk woman,"—for the street-sellers are generally females,—dips a large breakfast-cup, holding half a pint, into the pan, puts a teaspoonful of sugar into it, browns the whole with allspice, and receives ; a halfpennyworth is, of course, half the quantity. The rice-milk women are also sellers of oranges, chestnuts, apples, or some other fruit, as well as the ricemilk; but, sometimes, when the weather is cold and frosty, they sell rice-milk alone. There are street-sellers of rice-milk in London. Saturday night is the best time of sale, when it is not uncommon for a ricemilk woman to sell quarts; but, in a good trade, quarts a day for days of the week is an average. The purchasers are poor people; and a of the milk is sold to boys and girls, to whom it is often a meal. "Ah, sir," said woman, "you should have seen how a poor man, last winter, swallowed a penn'orth. He'd been a-wandering all night, he said, and he looked it, and a gentleman gave him , for he took pity on his hungry look, and he spent with me, and I gave him another | |
194 | cup for charity. 'God bless the gentleman and you!' says he, 'it's saved my life; if I'd bought a penny loaf, I'd have choked on it.' He wasn't a beggar, for I never saw him before, and I've never seen him again from that day to this." The same informant told me, that she believed no rice-milk was bought by the women of the town: "it didn't suit the likes of them." Neither is it bought by those who are engaged in noisome trades. If there be any of the ricemilk left at night, and the saleswoman have doubts of its "keeping," it is re-boiled with fresh rice and milk. The profit is considerable; for the ingredients, which cost less than , are made into pennyworths, and so to realize In some of the poorer localities, however, such as , only the half-pint can be obtained, and is then the amount received for quarts, instead of |
To start "in rice-milk" requires capital, which includes a pan for boiling the milk, ; a kettle, with brazier, for stall, ; stall or stand, ; cups, ; for stock-money , with which is bought quarts of skimmilk, ; lb. of rice, ; lb. of sugar, ; allspice, | |
The season continues for months; and calculating—a calculation within the mark— that half of the sellers have as good a trade as my informant— quarts weekly—and that, of the remaining , half sell quarts each weekly, at the half-pint, and the other half vend quarts at the half-pint, we find that is annually spent in rice-milk and about gallons of it yearly consumed in the streets of London. | |
